This week, Florida Georgia Line’s collaboration with the Backstreet Boys called “God, Your Mama, and Me” hit #1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay Chart, meaning The Backstreet Boys—a washed-up boy bad who otherwise had not received a #1 distinction for over 18 years—is now the owner of a country music #1, and will be decorated as such by the industry.

To help put this distinction into better perspective, let’s take a look at a list of actual country music artists who’ve devoted their lives to the craft and are currently setting the pace not just creatively through awards and other distinctions, but commercially via album sales and tour purses, who have never received a #1 on country music radio.

And this list is just the start…

• Kacey Musgraves has won multiple CMA Awards, multiple ACM Awards, two Grammy Awards, but the best she’s ever placed on the country radio charts is #10 with “Merry Go ‘Round.” These days, her radio singles are often portrayed as “dead on arrival.”

• Chris Stapleton was one of the best-selling country artists in 2016, and was the first in country to mint a Gold record according to the RIAA in 2017 (and for a record not released until May). He virtually swept the CMA and ACM Awards in 2015 and 2016 respectively, walking away with Album of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, along with other major awards. The best a Chris Stapleton performed song has ever done on the radio charts is #10 with “Nobody To Blame.”

• Brandy Clark has been personally nominated for four Grammy awards, including the all-genre Best New Artist in 2015, not to mention the numerous accolades from the Grammys, CMA’s and ACM’s for songs she has written. Yet her best performance on country radio so far was a paltry #39 for “Girl Next Door.”

• Sturgill Simpson won the Grammy for Best Country Album in 2017, and was up for what is considered the music industry’s highest distinction—the Grammy for Album of the Year. He has never charted a song on country radio.

• Cam‘s “Burning House” was considered the song of the summer in 2015 in country, sold to a platinum level according to the RIAA, was nominated for 7 industry awards, including CMA’s, ACM’s, and Grammy Awards. It stalled on country radio at #2.

• Jason Isbell has now charted two #1 country albums, is the owner of multiple Grammy Awards, sells out multi-night residencies at the Ryman Auditorium on a regular basis, and is a bigger concert draw than many 2nd tier mainstream country artists. He’s never had a charting single on country radio.

• Jamey Johnson won four Song of the Year awards, and was nominated for 16 other distinctions by the CMA’s, ACM’s, and Grammy Awards. But the best any of his singles could ever do was #9 on the radio charts with “In Color” in 2009, despite it selling over 1.3 million copies, and winning the ACM and CMA for Song of the Year.

• Marty Stuart potted 4 gold records during his major label run, is considered a living country music legend, to many is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame someday, but never had a #1. The closest he ever came was a #5 in 1991 for “Tempted.”

• David Allan Coe had what many consider a Hall of Fame caliber career despite off-the-stage controversies, and has compiled one of the greatest songwriting catalogs of any country music legend. He also never had a #1 song. Not “The Ride,” not “You Never Even Called Me By My Name.” The closest he ever came was “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile,” which hit #2 in 1984.

• Ashley Monroe DID receive a #1 for her collaboration with Blake Shelton on “Lonely Tonight” in 2014. The best she’s done on radio solo is #39 for “Weed Instead of Roses.”

(Good point, my rage over the fact that this perfect storm-esque combination of no-talent assclowns has a #1 country song of any kind must have blinded me and caused me to miss the “airplay” piece. But still…fuck them.)

I’ve heard the song on my wife’s Sirius country station, but I had no idea it was the Backstreet Boys too. Who knew they were even still around? I guess they were right and BACKSTREET’S BACK, ALRIGHT!!!

Somewhere, some bro and his cougar girlfriend are clinking cheers on their shot glasses of Crown Apple and Fireball in preparation of the celebratory booty dance that is about to commence. And somewhere, a velvet painting of Hank Williams sheds a bright silver teardrop…

Hey Trig, have you considered the possibility that some of these “Leave Britney Alone” comments come from radio or record company plants trying desperately to plug holes in the sinking ships moored along 16th Avenue?

I do have a tremendous amount of readers up and down Music Row that I can verify via pinpointing ISP’s. It’s probably the most concentrated location of hits this website gets. That’s why I try to tell people that I’m not just writing these articles for independent fans, I’m writing them to attempt to influence the marketplace. Whether these Music Row readers read it as a piece of humor or serious info, or feel the need to pipe up here, I’m not sure. But you would be surprised how many people in the industry agree with a lot of the sentiments expressed here. They’re just powerless to do anything about it.

We know why: 1) they didn’t pony up the $750k-plus for a marketing push, 2) their songs sound weird to women during the daily commute-to-work song rotation, and 3) many of their songs or personalities are out of step with mainstream values and sensibilities: they’re artistic, secular, depressed, and screedy, and that’s just not sociable and “fun.” Personally, I like them.

Well, secular isn’t out of step with mainstream values. Maybe only for country music but even then how many legitimate gospel inspired songs (HOLY and this song doesn’t register) have made it big recently on the country radio? I can only think of “Something in the Water” and “Long Black Train.”

Hard for me to take religious material from FGL seriously when all their other songs are about drugs, parties and group sex. It’s like a mafia boss threatening to shoot people if they miss church on Sunday.

It doesn’t help that many of these stations don’t even know who artists are that fall outside of their approved playlists: go ahead and call your local “country” station and request a Jason Isbell song: it’s not just that they don’t have the songs in their playlists: they’ve never even heard of him.

A couple of years back, I tried an experiment and called three local “country” stations in my area and tried requesting songs by Wade Bowen, Lindi Ortega, Jason Eady, and Courtney Patton. The response from the DJ on each station was “who?” So, not only are they not playing these songs: these DJs don’t even have enough interest in their profession to explore artists outside of what they’re told to play.

Let’s be real, back st boys by themselves wouldn’t have charted. This went to #1 bc of FGL. It really isn’t any diff than the #1 Ashley Monroe has for being partnered with Blake. If any of the aforementioned folks on this list did the same they’d probably have a #1 as well.

Speaking of Chris, umg realized the effed up & has dropped either way at radio, with broken halos being sent this week. For radio this should have been the lead single all along. But they wasted the hourly debut momentum.

‘Featuring’ is one of lamest trends in all of popular music of the last 20 years or so. There are some hip hop songs ‘featuring’ numerous performers and which their own mothers may not be able to pick them out from the crowd. But they get to claim it as a hit for themselves.

Also this is in conjunction with on of the boys being on a reality talent show. Cross promotion all around people. The really sad part is they dug up the Backstreet Boys as if they are some kind of legacy act now.

Having a #1 record today, single or album, is not hard if you have the money to buy it. It’s just a matter of having the record label release it during a slow week when the competition is weak. The number of copies sold is irrelevant, might be 100,000 copies or might be 20,000 copies. The only thing that matters is that you sell more than whomever came in second place. A lump of cash in the right pocket at the record label, and they’re happy to check the release schedules of the other record labels and figure out which week to release it. Pretty simple.

Look at Brad and Kim Paisley and their recent Love and War album. It came in #1 the week it was released selling only 27,000 copies, so it will forever be called a #1 album. The fact that now, 10 weeks after it’s release date, it has sold only 50,000 total copies, making it a commercial flop, is irrelevant. Lots and lots of other examples. What a lousy system it is.

That’s…not at all accurate. There are a ton of BS market forces at play here but you’re missing the boat on pretty much all of this. There aren’t that many label groups and each one has their entire stable of imprints with its own roster of artists. Just keeping release schedules coordinated between all of that is hard enough but as I see it there are two main reasons everything is terrible right now:

1) politics in the radio world about who gets played: plenty of PDs who have control over what their station plays defer to the same 3 or 4 tastemakers and certain artists get blackballed while others are played relentlessly regardless of how good/bad the new single is. This is 70% of the problem. The attitude is “I don’t make the hits, I just play them.” Pretty fucking cowardly since all you have to do to make a song a hit is play it, but that’s none of my business… *sips tea*

2) shorter release cycles by everyone nervously eyeing the timer on their 15 minutes of fame means no matter how well a single does, the next one comes out 14 weeks later. So one may still be doing really well – especially if listeners actually like it – and still running with a full head of steam when the next one drops and the promotion starts all over. Repeat this enough times and 5 artists may account for a third of the top 40, as is often the case.

However, at the end of the day, for most artists you hear on the radio, getting a #1 is very very hard, even with all the money in the world. Getting into the top 10 is an accomplishment for most artists unless they’re established a listers. Once a single is in that top 10, it’s exponentially more competitive the further up it pushes.

I just left the band of a radio artist with a whole slew of hits but no #1’s right before they’re about to go on one of the biggest stadium tours of the summer, and frankly I don’t miss having to hear the constant updates from our radio reps on how hard it was to get stuff played between all the horseshit FGL and Sam Hunt garbage on the radio. That artist is in radio purgatory most of the time, and by all accounts millions of dollars have been invested in his career and he’s still doing pretty well in the grand scheme of things. Which just goes to show you, money isn’t everything in the radio game.

While the Backstreet Boys having a number one country airplay hit is odd for sure, they are one of many unusual – or should I say unpredictable – artists to have hit number one country (airplay or overall #1) in the history of the Billboard charts.

Agree with your point but John Schneider doesn’t fit. He has a pretty great country voice and he had 10 top ten hits including four #1’s. ‘I’ve Been Around Enough To Know’ is a great Dickey Lee/Bob McDill song that Schneider sings quite well.

You’re probably right about Schneider, Scotty J. I guess I included him because when he first appeared on Dukes Of Hazzard as ‘aw shucks’ hunk Bo Duke, no one probably thought about him having such an amazing voice. Hearing him sing on the radio was like listening to Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) sing the first time. You just couldn’t believe that he was that good.

In fact getting past quality of song this duet isn’t really that unusual as the names you mentioned outside of Schneider were Charles (‘Seven Spanish Angels’ duet with Willie), Eastwood (‘Bar Room Buddies’ duet with Merle), Iglesias (‘To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before’ with Willie), Nat King Cole was 1944 the first year of any kind of Billboard country chart, The Andrews Sisters was a duet with Bing Crosby on ‘Pistol Packin Mama’ and was the first #1 in 1944 the aforementioned first year Billboard had anything resembling a country chart. Lawrence Welk and his orchestra had a #1 in 1945 with future Hall of Famer Red Foley on lead vocal. Pink had the awful duet with Kenny Chesney a while back. That leaves Tom Jones from your list who actually had a #1 all on his own back in 1977.

So this duet fits in with other examples from the past. Now if only the song was of higher quality.

Radio is in the hands of large corporations whose only concern is advertising $$$ because without it nobody gets paid.So much great music never makes it to radio.
It’s about time Radio Program directors at least showed a little love and featured some new talent on their shows.
A few djs do some homegrown shows but a lot more is needed to feed the appetite of fans hungry for good country music

Something just isn’t right about the fact that Backstreet Boys have a number one on country radio, but Ashley Monroe and Kacey Musgraves both do not. They are actual country artists who truly deserve tons of success. BSB have had their heyday.

It’s so sad to me how number one songs are portrayed nowadays. It should be that quality songs should be rewarded, while shitty ones fail. Now I guess it’s not super special anymore. It’s an “everyone participates, so everyone wins” club. So sad.

I rather listen to a 1,000 songs of the afore mentioned artists than 1 Florida Georgia Line song, Bro!
Sure won’t see no crotch grabbing or nasty underarm hair from, Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson or Jamey Johnson!
I hate country radio anyway!

But Ashley Monroe does have a #1 just as BSB does. She was ‘featured’ on a Blake Shelton #1 a couple years ago just as BSB are ‘ featured’ on this thing. Of course it would be nice if she had more but in reality she has exactly the same kind of #1 as these clowns.

Are we just counting songs recorded by those artists? Because George Strait took the Jamey Johnson co-write “Give It Away” to number one in 2006. And I believe Trace Adkins’ “Ladies Love Country Boys”, another Johnson co-write, to number 1. I think Stapleton may have had some number ones as a writer as well. So, while not recorded by them, in a way, it is a number 1 single.

Chris Stapleton also has written a couple of #1’s, and Brandy Clark has written a few hits as well. I didn’t take these into account, but they do speak to the power of their songwriting, and another reason their own contributions should be considered for radio.

I actually saw Brandy Clark just last night at Soaring Eagle Casino in Michigan, opening up for Lionel Richie (not so far off as Lionel has more country cred than 99.9% of the performers on pop country radio, certainly more than Florida Georgia Line or Backstreet Boys). She was fantastic. She really reminded me of Mary-Chapin Carpenter in her 1990s heyday with the way she combined folk, country and Americana. It breaks my heart that she hasn’t had wider country radio support as a performer but I think that’s as much about her refusal to be another Kelsea Ballerini as it is about her sexual orientation.

No, actually Google suggested this article, not sure why. I decided to read it and then figured out that the writer is incredibly jealous of the success of anyone that isn’t a country artist, so I decided to comment.

Singing songs they didn’t write, while not playing instruments, while dancing someone else’s choreographed dances, while having a marketing team to prey upon impressionable teenage girls. So that leaves ‘The Backstreet Boys’ with only the fact that they can sing decently. Yeah, no, that certainly does sound like quite an accomplishment.

They have written songs of their own, they can play instruments, and have put together choreography of their own in the past. As for marketing to teenage girls, most of their fans are now in their 20s and 30s, I don’t think they would have stuck around this long to listen to a band that only markets to teenagers. Have you ever heard them sing? They sing a lot better than all of your favorite artists that not enough people like that you feel the need to defend for no one wanting to listen to them. And before someone tries to say I don’t like country music, I do. I listen to a lot of older country, most of the newer stuff has more autotune than the pop music these days, because apparently being a good singer isn’t a requirement anymore.

The jealousy argument is SO CLICHE and tired and I find it is used by people who have no other defense for their narrow and often terrible music tastes. I hate Aaron Carter too so I guess I am jealous of him as well. I’m am not going to change your mind on boy “bands” but if want good vocals try The Temptations or The Isley Brothers, The Chi-lites, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, The Righteous Brothers…

You made yourself an easy target here so I have to applaud anyone who stands up with conviction in their music tastes. I do not fault your for liking what you like but seriously… seriously… I get the nostalgia of it all (I had a HUGE Paula Abdul phase) but seriously they are not that good in the grand scheme… and certainly DO NOT

Well damn some people don’t sell millions of records and manage to put out music that doesn’t stink like a rotting skunk in an August street in Phoenix. So sales and airplay as this article suggest to not mean squat in regards to talent.

Furthermore the Backstreet were product sold to and at mindless girls who fawn over cute boys. If they had been ugly even just one of the members (no dice). So let’s be real. The “talent” was formed after the looks and tepid songs were put together to cater specifically to hormonal girls whose parents have expendable income.

Lastly they are playing Vegas where MANY MANY aging has been stars ho can’t sell out arena tours anymore go to die. I’m not saying these shows are attended by the same people who play the nickle slots but seriously if you want me to compare what they have done to what I have done…

Well I volunteer my time working with at risk youth. I just leave it at that.

I wish one of these young cats would do a song with David Allan Coe and take him to number 1 before he dies. Or better yet, get him at an awards show and let him play. It’s ashame how he is treated by the industry. The sad thing about the x rated songs, shel Silverstein conwrote them. He goes down in history as a good guy and pretty much sealed Coe fate as a bad guy.

Sam Hunt’s “Body Like A Backroad” still FAR ahead of all other songs on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, even on airplay when you include the increasing airplay on Top 40 and Hot AC stations. Way ahead of every country song on streaming and sales too. Looks like it could easily spend at least another month at #1.

Speaking of boy bands, what are The Oak Ridge Boys doing these days? Maybe they need a return to the charts with some kind of summer anthem about daisy dukes lost on a back road look for beer while somehow at the same time fishing on a boat.

I’d heard BSB and FGL did a live collaboration of G, YM & M on the CMA awards (I believe) but had no idea they recorded it together. I have no issue with artists paying respect to their influences and their influences are usually within the same genre or at least close. Everybody knows FGL has a multiple amount of influences from diverse genres. The question is when will they strictly use their COUNTRY influences?

We’ve got to go back to the 1970’s when Nashville had a group called I believe it was ACE. Can’t remember what it stood for….but they locked up the country music genre from pop singers or rockers from coming in. It’s just not right. I mean does anyone remember when Leann Womack came out with her first album….and they said “it was too country for country radio”……TOTALLY ABSURD!!!!!!! Now you look….and Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish is alowed in. Jon Bon Jovi….was allowed in…….Uncle Krackr was allowed in…….and I recently seen the guy from Aerosmith is going into country. It’s like when is country going to get back to real traditional country anymore???? Hopefully something will change…..and soon.

How soon we have forgotten Alabama’s cover of *NSYNC’s ‘God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You’ with *NSYNC. It hit #3 in 1999! The Backstreet Boys aren’t the only boy band on the country chart!